First Published: 7th of March, 2022. Region 6, Guyana, South America
Last updated: May 30, 2024 at 19:18 pm
The video below shows a possible instance of the ball lightning phenomenon, although I’m not sure of the location.
On the evening of March 5th, 2022, hundreds of residents across a 100-mile radius in Regions 5 and 6 of Guyana, South America reported seeing strange light objects in the skies. Although it was difficult to gauge the size of the objects, they appeared to be just about a meter in length, and they were circling like fish swimming closely behind each other. There were three or four light objects moving in a circular motion closely behind each other.
People were awestruck. They had never in their life seen anything of that nature and they were wondering what it was. Some people were smart enough to pull out their phones and start filming. Some took photos. One person was mischievous enough to photoshop a UFO spacecraft and put it above the lights.
So what exactly were those lights or lighted objects? Some people speculated that they could have been light beams or effects produced by disco lights, fiesta lights, festoon lights, etc, but this explanation has been ruled out by Team Guyana, South America. First off all, if it were party lights, the beams would have been visible going up from the earth, and this was not the case in the March 5 phenomenon. Further, people in general know what are party lights, and they can easily recognize it and pinpoint the source. In this case however, there were only three or four lighted objects circling each other – swimming in a circular motion – with no light beams ascending from the earth. We can conclude that it was not the effect of party beams coming from an event at New Amsterdam or Albion – as some people claimed.
The possibility of an alien spacecraft has also been ruled out because there was nothing remotely similar to an alien spacecraft anywhere in sight – aside from the cleverly photoshopped UFO/Alien spacecraft on one of the photos and videos.
Most likely, the phenomenon observed in the skies on the evening of March 5th, 2022 was the ball lightning phenomenon.
What is the Ball Lightning Phenomenon?
Ball lightning makes a grand entrance through a window in this 20th century French depiction. Credit: Louis Poyet/Wikimedia, Public Domain
The ball lightning phenomenon is a type of lightning that takes the form of a glowing ball about a few meters in length with a bulb the size of a grapefruit. Little is known about ball lightning, but depictions of it were reported over centuries or perhaps thousands of years. Scientists are not sure what causes ball lightings although numerous theories have been put forward. Ball lightnings have been known to break through windows, set houses on fire etc.
While accounts of residents suggest that the lights were circling the skies over Berbice for several hours, scientific journals to date indicate that ball lightnings last only about 25 seconds. At the same time, scientific data on ball lightnings is very limited and it is not impossible that they can last much longer than previously recorded.
According to statistical investigations in the 1960s, only 5% of the population had seen ball lightning. However, in the modern-day proliferation of camera-equipped mobile devices such as smart phones, we may expect more recordings and more data on the mysterious and elusive ball lightning phenomenon.
It is possible that ball lightnings may explain the myth of the “fire rass” or “Old Higue” in Guyanese folklore.
